Hi,
I have built a mini Distro based on Mandrake 7.0, which I have
optimised for Flash Usage. The root file system is mounted read only, ram
disks are used to minimize flash erase/writes. However its size is approx
25 Meg with X included. However there are no other programs such as
netscape or package manager included. Only the system executables and
libraries. I know it is possible to make it smaller, but since I was using
a 48 Meg Flash disk it was enough for me.
I have used a real time enhanced version of standard Linux kernel,
(Timesys Linux/RT Kernel). However it is possible to use other kernels,
since I have compiled and optimised the kernel for my advantech PCM-5820
board.
BY the way, you can check the site www.linux-embedded.com there
is a list of small embedded distributions and LEM (Linux Embedded).
I think it is better for you to build your own distro, though
being a little bit time comsuming and effort needing process. There are
many howto' s and papers about this subject. For example check out the
Linux-From-Scratch-Howto, or boot-disk-howto' s. You can reach them from
www.linuxdoc.org Howtos section.
Iskender Yigitel
On Sun, 23 Dec 2001, Rasmus Lerdorf wrote:
> I am playing around with Compaq's IA-1's which are little AMD K6-based
> boxes with 4 USB ports, 16M of flash internally, an external compact flash
> slot, 32M of RAM, wireless keyboard, sound, modem and a nice 10.1" LCD.
> They are going for around $60 on ubid these days or $99 from
> tigerdirect.com and are very fun toys. I have hacked up the old Jailbait
> distro to run nicely from the internal 16M flash (see
> http://php2.chek.com/~rasmus), but this distro was not designed for this
> thing and it is also quite dated. Netscape 4.7 keeps leaking memory and
> dies and the whole thing is just too clunky.
>
> So, my question. What would you guys suggest as the base for a small
> distro for this thing? I am thinking along the lines of using the
> internal 16M of flash for the base OS without any user apps and then using
> the external flash to be able to build different personalities for it.
> The current Jailbait with all its little partitions with cramfs
> filesystems is a real hassle to work with when you need to change
> something. There must be a better way.
>
> uclibc looks like a good starting point, obviously busybox/tinylogin and
> 2.4.17 with all the USB drivers since this little box has 4 USB ports and
> that is the primary way to hook anything up to it. Konq-embedded or
> Mozilla as the browser? Which can be made smaller? It would be good to
> squeeze X and a browser onto the base image.
>
> Anybody out there working on something similar?
>
> -Rasmus
>
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> with the command "unsubscribe linux-embedded" in the message body.
> For more information, see <http://waste.org/mail/linux-Xmbedded>.
>
--
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with the command "unsubscribe linux-embedded" in the message body.
For more information, see <http://waste.org/mail/linux-embedded>.
